I've been asked to post this.
Ample time has passed, so I feel comfortable in doing so.
Know that the personalities and descriptive details have been altered for obvious reasons, but the content and implications remain intact.
Several months ago, finding employment had become increasingly difficult. I worked in retail stores. I did odd jobs - construction and handyman stuff. I'm well educated and have a very solid career history, but sometimes the well runs dry and you find yourself taking any job that helps you pay the rent.
A former co-worker's sister happens to work at a nearby casino in the HR department. When an interesting job opened up, he asked her if I could apply. The job opening was the graveyard shift in the surveillance department. It's important to note that, though I've been to Vegas with him on work related things, he is not familiar with anything more than my passing interest in whiskey and poker.
I spent a long time wondering if applying for a casino job was a bad idea. The AP world is ripe with paranoia, and trust amongst AP players is both hard to gain and easy to lose.
Plus, I'm the kind of person who likes to be good at what he does - would I be good at this? Ultimately, I decided that I would approach the job with trepidation, and if I didn't like what I saw, I'd pull out.
I interviewed with several HR people and was generally approved...Mostly, the HR department sees under-educated wait-staff, dealers transferring from other casinos, and houskeeping would-be's with boyfriends in tow to translate for them.
The first lady I interviewed with commented that they didn't see many college degrees come through and that she hoped I would take the job (even though it hadn't been offered yet). Next, I had to meet with the head of the surveillance dept.
We chatted a while in his office. Little probing questions were tossed about, as expected. Do I gamble? Sure, I go to vegas now and then...I like craps and roulette, particularly the dollar tables, I play poker too, but poorly. I'm familiar with most of the games, and yeah, I've read the MIT book - it was a best-seller, you know... But I'd need a lot of training on the Asian card games and anything that used tiles. I'm good with computers though. The graveyard slot is 11PM to 7AM. Could I handle those hours? I didn't know, but was willing to try.
He said that the biggest concern for his department was turnover. They lose a lot of people who get bored or frustrated with the work. Frankly, they were tired of training people only to lose them a few months later. I'd have a separate entrance, and would not be allowed to gamble on the premesis. They wanted to hire externally because they feared existing relationships could contribute to bias. They worry as much about their dealers as they do their players.
The casino in question is not a vegas style casino...it's not player vs. the house...instead, it's player vs. player....the house takes off of the top. So surveillance was particularly interested in monitoring for teams, outfits who banded together against the casino's whales in order to drain them dry. The casino, he assured me, wanted to provide fair gaming to all of its patrons. They've busted teams before.
I would be taught the rules of each of the games, and I would be given a crash course in various methods of dishonest play, from swapping Pai Gow tiles to bet-capping to the simple snatch-and-grab.
It was impressed upon me that the pit would rely on my eye in the sky to make decisions worth 10's of thousands of dollars. These decisions would need to be made accurately and quickly.
I'd also have to spend a lot of time swapping VHS tapes. Digital systems, he explained, were too buggy and cumbersome, and even most of the large Vegas casinos relied on VHS technology.
That's not to say that the technology wasn't impressive. From his desk, the Head of Surviellance used keyboard/joystick combination to control a large flatscreen display. He showed me the casino exterior, the cameras in the parking lot, the cameras designed to capture license plates.
He showed me the camera watching over the surviellance room, answering the age old question of who watches the people doing the watching. I have no idea who monitors him, but I'm sure that someone does.
And then he showed me the various views of the casino floor. Employing a 52x digital zoom, he showed me which players cleaned debris from under their fingernails in the morning. He pointed out which dealer had dandruff. He swiveled to get the best headshot of a semi-famous player.
It was unnerving how much detail they could get, in full color. from any angle. It was also pretty evident that operating the controls was a learned skill. He was showing off, but the controls were touchy...and at one point it took him a few minutes to get the camera to focus on a stack of chips.
While he did this, I took in his desk. What struck me was the piece of paper thumbtacked to the wall. On a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal-pad, was the breakdown for the classic high-low count.
2-6 = +1
7-9 = 0
10-A = -1
It bothered me...why was it there? There was a Basic Strategy chart taped next to it. Did the head of surviellance need a cheat sheet for high-low? What about other counts?
We took a walk to visit the control room. The vast array of VHS decks and electronics was impressive. Three operators sat at terminals and rotated through the screens in an odd approximation of channel surfing...but every channel was the same. The room was quiet...no radio playing, very little conversation....just keyboards clacking and the quiet hum of the equipment.
The phone rang...there was a discrepancy...did the dealer at table 25 mis-pay the player at position 3? The operator rewound and peered closer to his screen. Apparently, they can zoom and pan and tilt in real-time, but once it's on tape and over, they can't do anything but squint. He did his best to visually count the chips and I got a better appreciation of the side-stripes on the chips. The dealer was right....and the game went on.
As we walked back to the Surviellance head's office, we passed a lanky guy in brown coveralls. That was one of the two camera tech-guys. The cameras go down a lot and they do their best to keep as many of the key cameras functioning as they can. He seemed like a nice enough guy.
And then came The Offer.
They liked the cut of my jib and would be happy to have me on board...the only thing left for me to do was to get a gaming license (as all casino employees must), and that could be taken care of at the nearby police station. My hours would be 11PM to 7AM, but I would be on-call 24-7. Overtime wasn't uncommon.
They offered me a starting salary of $9/hour. They usually start people at $8, but they thought I was a great candidate. They'd probably up that by 50 cents in a year.
I left the casino and headed home. The drive took me an hour and by then, I'd made up my mind. I couldn't take the job.
Part of me wanted to take it. The experience the insight, the training...it would have been great. But I would have been risking too much. My wife wouldn't have loved it either since she has a day-job.
Ultimately, the salary was too low to even consider the job. I made $12.50/ hour in retail and they didn't expect me to make decisions that could cost the company what amounts to many people's annual salary based on my impression of an image on a video monitor.
So, there you have my experience.
I always figured that the eye in the sky had to be the best job going. You'd have to pay those guys enough to keep temptation or boredom from swaying them against you. They'd have to be super-qualified. Probably ex-miltary code guys. They'd have all the hottest tech at their disposal.
What I found was a some slightly fancy equipment that was being operated by overworked, underpaid guys who ate their meals at their stations and were probably counting the hours before they'd get the chance to see natural light again.
Make of it what you will.
Ample time has passed, so I feel comfortable in doing so.
Know that the personalities and descriptive details have been altered for obvious reasons, but the content and implications remain intact.
Several months ago, finding employment had become increasingly difficult. I worked in retail stores. I did odd jobs - construction and handyman stuff. I'm well educated and have a very solid career history, but sometimes the well runs dry and you find yourself taking any job that helps you pay the rent.
A former co-worker's sister happens to work at a nearby casino in the HR department. When an interesting job opened up, he asked her if I could apply. The job opening was the graveyard shift in the surveillance department. It's important to note that, though I've been to Vegas with him on work related things, he is not familiar with anything more than my passing interest in whiskey and poker.
I spent a long time wondering if applying for a casino job was a bad idea. The AP world is ripe with paranoia, and trust amongst AP players is both hard to gain and easy to lose.
Plus, I'm the kind of person who likes to be good at what he does - would I be good at this? Ultimately, I decided that I would approach the job with trepidation, and if I didn't like what I saw, I'd pull out.
I interviewed with several HR people and was generally approved...Mostly, the HR department sees under-educated wait-staff, dealers transferring from other casinos, and houskeeping would-be's with boyfriends in tow to translate for them.
The first lady I interviewed with commented that they didn't see many college degrees come through and that she hoped I would take the job (even though it hadn't been offered yet). Next, I had to meet with the head of the surveillance dept.
We chatted a while in his office. Little probing questions were tossed about, as expected. Do I gamble? Sure, I go to vegas now and then...I like craps and roulette, particularly the dollar tables, I play poker too, but poorly. I'm familiar with most of the games, and yeah, I've read the MIT book - it was a best-seller, you know... But I'd need a lot of training on the Asian card games and anything that used tiles. I'm good with computers though. The graveyard slot is 11PM to 7AM. Could I handle those hours? I didn't know, but was willing to try.
He said that the biggest concern for his department was turnover. They lose a lot of people who get bored or frustrated with the work. Frankly, they were tired of training people only to lose them a few months later. I'd have a separate entrance, and would not be allowed to gamble on the premesis. They wanted to hire externally because they feared existing relationships could contribute to bias. They worry as much about their dealers as they do their players.
The casino in question is not a vegas style casino...it's not player vs. the house...instead, it's player vs. player....the house takes off of the top. So surveillance was particularly interested in monitoring for teams, outfits who banded together against the casino's whales in order to drain them dry. The casino, he assured me, wanted to provide fair gaming to all of its patrons. They've busted teams before.
I would be taught the rules of each of the games, and I would be given a crash course in various methods of dishonest play, from swapping Pai Gow tiles to bet-capping to the simple snatch-and-grab.
It was impressed upon me that the pit would rely on my eye in the sky to make decisions worth 10's of thousands of dollars. These decisions would need to be made accurately and quickly.
I'd also have to spend a lot of time swapping VHS tapes. Digital systems, he explained, were too buggy and cumbersome, and even most of the large Vegas casinos relied on VHS technology.
That's not to say that the technology wasn't impressive. From his desk, the Head of Surviellance used keyboard/joystick combination to control a large flatscreen display. He showed me the casino exterior, the cameras in the parking lot, the cameras designed to capture license plates.
He showed me the camera watching over the surviellance room, answering the age old question of who watches the people doing the watching. I have no idea who monitors him, but I'm sure that someone does.
And then he showed me the various views of the casino floor. Employing a 52x digital zoom, he showed me which players cleaned debris from under their fingernails in the morning. He pointed out which dealer had dandruff. He swiveled to get the best headshot of a semi-famous player.
It was unnerving how much detail they could get, in full color. from any angle. It was also pretty evident that operating the controls was a learned skill. He was showing off, but the controls were touchy...and at one point it took him a few minutes to get the camera to focus on a stack of chips.
While he did this, I took in his desk. What struck me was the piece of paper thumbtacked to the wall. On a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal-pad, was the breakdown for the classic high-low count.
2-6 = +1
7-9 = 0
10-A = -1
It bothered me...why was it there? There was a Basic Strategy chart taped next to it. Did the head of surviellance need a cheat sheet for high-low? What about other counts?
We took a walk to visit the control room. The vast array of VHS decks and electronics was impressive. Three operators sat at terminals and rotated through the screens in an odd approximation of channel surfing...but every channel was the same. The room was quiet...no radio playing, very little conversation....just keyboards clacking and the quiet hum of the equipment.
The phone rang...there was a discrepancy...did the dealer at table 25 mis-pay the player at position 3? The operator rewound and peered closer to his screen. Apparently, they can zoom and pan and tilt in real-time, but once it's on tape and over, they can't do anything but squint. He did his best to visually count the chips and I got a better appreciation of the side-stripes on the chips. The dealer was right....and the game went on.
As we walked back to the Surviellance head's office, we passed a lanky guy in brown coveralls. That was one of the two camera tech-guys. The cameras go down a lot and they do their best to keep as many of the key cameras functioning as they can. He seemed like a nice enough guy.
And then came The Offer.
They liked the cut of my jib and would be happy to have me on board...the only thing left for me to do was to get a gaming license (as all casino employees must), and that could be taken care of at the nearby police station. My hours would be 11PM to 7AM, but I would be on-call 24-7. Overtime wasn't uncommon.
They offered me a starting salary of $9/hour. They usually start people at $8, but they thought I was a great candidate. They'd probably up that by 50 cents in a year.
I left the casino and headed home. The drive took me an hour and by then, I'd made up my mind. I couldn't take the job.
Part of me wanted to take it. The experience the insight, the training...it would have been great. But I would have been risking too much. My wife wouldn't have loved it either since she has a day-job.
Ultimately, the salary was too low to even consider the job. I made $12.50/ hour in retail and they didn't expect me to make decisions that could cost the company what amounts to many people's annual salary based on my impression of an image on a video monitor.
So, there you have my experience.
I always figured that the eye in the sky had to be the best job going. You'd have to pay those guys enough to keep temptation or boredom from swaying them against you. They'd have to be super-qualified. Probably ex-miltary code guys. They'd have all the hottest tech at their disposal.
What I found was a some slightly fancy equipment that was being operated by overworked, underpaid guys who ate their meals at their stations and were probably counting the hours before they'd get the chance to see natural light again.
Make of it what you will.